Climate: Past, Present & Future

music

Climate models and Bach’s unfinished fugue

September 10, 2020

Illustration by: Roshanak Tootoonchi, M.Sc. Student in hydrology and water resources management, University of Tabriz, Iran.

Johann Sebastian Bach’s last work – Contrapunctus XIV – is an unfinished musical composition. For many years, scholars considered that this piece was left unfinished because of Bach’s deteriorating health in his final years and eventual death. However, researchers recently found evidence that Bach might have left this piece intentionally unfinished, as he thought that there was still room for impr ...[Read More]

Glacier retreat and music

Hans Oerlemans¹ and Felix Keller²
¹Utrecht University (The Netherlands) and Technical University of Graubünden (Switzerland); correspondence: j.oerlemans@uu.nl ²Technical University of Graubünden and Academia Engiadina (Switzerland)
July 20, 2020

Photograph of the Pers glacier (left) and Morteratsch glacier (right) in Switzerland. You can also see Piz Bernina (4049 m) on the right side and a small glacier with fleece cover on the left (Diavolezza firn). Photocredits: Christine Levy (Academia Engiadina), who took the photo on 1st August 2017 from a glider.

In virtually all parts of the world glaciers are retreating, and this is often considered to be one of the clearest signs of global warming (e.g. Leclercq and J Oerlemans, 2011). Glaciers started to shrink in the second half of the 19th century and, apart from some minor interruptions, this development has continued until today. Over the past hundred years glacier melt has made a significant contr ...[Read More]